On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 12:06:58AM +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> >Given that our standard position on patents is to ignore them unless a
> >particular patent holder is threatening us with lawsuits, I see no
> >reason why we shouldn't apply the same policy here.
>
> Our standard position on patents is usually for the case where we have
> no patent licence and don't know that we require one. This is a case
> where we are being offered a non-free patent licence and a free
> copyright licence.
To be fair, it's IBM's (obsolete[0]) boilerplate license and the
patent clauses were "just in case"; most of the stuff under the IPL
won't actually have applicable patents (that used to be policy, don't
know if it still is).
> Why aren't these two seperate licences?
That's a fair question, it's usually less messy if written as two
licenses. I think that's just braindamage.
[0] They have since created and converted to the CPL, which is more
generic but otherwise largely the same. People who are not IBM
should not be using the IPL - it would either contain bogus
references to IBM as the copyright holder, or it would have been
edited and thusly would be a trademark violation to call it the
"IBM Public License". Also the upgrade clause is insane if the
original author isn't IBM.
--
.''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield
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